Social Media

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Transcript of Social Media

Social Media What is it exactly??

This concept can be understood best by breaking it down into components:

Media is an instrument of communication (disseminates ideas, information, text, images, videos etc)Social media is an instrument of communication which disseminates information whilst being interactive It is a form of media filled with UGC- User Generated Content.

Just think of your Facebook daily (hourly?) status updates, or thepictures you post to your Flickr account, of the video you uploadedof your dog/cat/baby/car to Youtube, or the post you wrote on you blogabout how much you love the subject MKF3461

These were all produced by the consumer, user ie YOU. Not by an officialmedia source such as a marketing firm or advertiser Implications for Business Organisations Social Networks are redefining and reshaping how organisations conduct businesschanged how consumers relate to the brand changed how organisations communicate with consumers Case Studies: Organisations that have launched successfulSocial Media Marketing Campaigns Case Study #1: The Ford Fiesta Movement "The Ford Fiesta has come to play on the American roads. In the ultimate foreign exchange program, our 100 agents will spend 6 months behind the wheel of their own Fiesta, lifestreaming their experiences, and completing monthly missions to show you what the Fiesta is all about." The Deal --> Before the launch of it's new Fiesta model in early 2009,Ford launched this campaign, which was essentially a competitionto become one of 100 Ford Fiesta Brand Agents.

Competitors had to upload creative Youtube videos specifying why they should be chosen. (audition tape)

After the 100 Brand Agents were picked, these agents were responsible for promoting the Ford Fiestathrough social media sites such as Facebook,Youtube, Twitter etc without spending anything ontraditional media.

Agents selected were geographically and occupationally diverse, however all of them were activelyinvolved in social media and were not afraid to speak their mind.

Ford Fiesta agents would have to go on various 'Missions' and upload their adventures to the Fordwebsite and also to their individual websites.

Basically, they had to promote and create as much hype/buzz about the new car as possible, andthey had to do it in a creative and non-traditional way. Campaign was an extreme sucess for Ford as:of the 3 large Automakers they survived the recession the bestgenerated a lot of buzz in the media about the campaign and the new car4000 applicants300 Facebook fans (as of April 2009)4.3 million YouTube views thus far500,000+ Flickr views3 million+ Twitter impression50,000 interested potential customers, 97% of which don’t own a Ford currently.

So successful that there is now a Ford Fiesta Movement 2 campaign underway The campaign allowed Ford to reach it's target market ofyoung individuals, specifically the Millenials. This group represents consumers born between 1979 & 1995 who comprise a total of 70million drivers. These consumers use social media daily (77% use Facebook/MySpace daily whilst 28% have a personal blog)

By using social media, Ford was able to appeal to their target market by aligning itself with cool, hipcarefree & tech-savvy young agents. Case study #2: Burger King's Whopper sacrifice Despite only running for a grand total of 7 days,this social media marketing campaign by Burger Kingwas and is considered a great viral success.

It won numerous advertising/marketing/media awards

The Deal--> In order to assess brand loyalty, Burger Kingdeveloped this humorous campaign whereby any personwilling to delete 10 friends off their facebook page wouldautomatically be given a free Whopper.

This ingenious campaign got users to publicly pledge alligience to the brand. The ultimate message was"The Whopper is so great that people would go togreat lengths in order to score a free one" 233,906 friendships were sacrificed at the end of the 7 day campaign

Facebook put an end to the campaign citing privacy issues and alsothe fact that the sacrifice of friendships went against its core valuesof connecting people

Facebook's ban of the campaign only served to make it more popular, however. Overnight, thousands of UGC (user generatedcontent) posts had appeared in various social networking sites.

The campaign, despite being short lived, is still considered one ofthe best viral successes as it got people talking about Burger Kingand the Whopper

The Whopper Sacrifice campaign also proceeded to win various awards such as first place for Web Applications & ADC Hybrid Media Award at the Art Directors Annual Awards 2009. The videos posted by the agents detailed them on roadtrips,adventures and doing a whole range of generally fun stuff. The Ford Fiesta wasn't talked about TOO much, as it would be in traditional advertising, it was always there in the background which made the videos seem more appealing as they didnt seem too commercialized or pushy.

Other missions included getting a fashion makeover, creating the most creative Youtube video featuing only puppies, re-creating your favorite film in a scene, dance-offs etc. All of these had to be either filmed and uploaded, tweeted or blogged about. All the missions were completed whilst driving the Ford Fiesta with the agent providing ongoing feedback about the performance of the vehicle.

In this video, one of the Agents, Jonathan 360 (who has his own channel on Youtube) got be passenger in a Ford Fiesta driven by professional driver Ken Block at the Gymkhana Ford Festival People even deleted family members off facebook, all for the sake of a free Whopper!

In this video, a guy deletes his poor nephew. Traditional forms of media are based on a one way flow of ideas and communication.Message goes from Producer Source

Social Media, on the other hand is INTERACTIVE, thus facilitating a 2-way flow of information.Message goes from Producer Source Social media offers various benefits:speed & conveniencemarketers can target customers more effectivelyconsumers can search for information more effectively However, as with any type of media, there are downsides to social media:privacy issuesdifficult for an organisation to control what is said about themdefamation, libel, slander--- freedom of speech?cannot be the only IMC tool used, but must be used in conjunction with other types of media Reference: